Slice of Life... Gabby reads to Chase


My slice of life came the other day when I had the idea to implement something I had heard discussed in one of my classes. My peer, in a brief description, referenced an article she had read about students with reading difficulties reading to dogs and how their scores went up tremendously. She shared that the children had found it easy to read to the dogs because they were nonjudgmental, and they listened and didn’t interrupt them to correct their mispronunciations and so on. 
Well, I thought that would be a great idea to try at home to get my daughter to read more. Epic Fail!!! While my daughter tried with all her might to get the pooch to listen, he was not having it. The more she read, the more he barked! He ran around the kennel and would not get quiet for one second!!! She was so furious. She stormed out of the room and said "I can’t do this with him! I’ll just have to read to my dolls." Now, why didn’t I think of that?!?!?!!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thinking and Writing

Reaching into Memory Most often students are made to write from a prompt. It is not always the easiest thing to do. Being made to elaborate on a topic or subject that you may know nothing about can seem a bit overwhelming to a reluctant writer. There is no connection to the topic. Reaching into a memory allows the student to think about something from their past, and to relive the moment. Be it a good memory, or a not-so-good one, the student has the tools they need to complete the request. There is no judgment on what is written, only that they wrote it. the student may feel more confident in their ability to write something well and is now willing to share from the heart. I would introduce this type of assignment to my students by having them to take out their writing notebook to prepare and then give them a moment to reach back into their memories and grab a memory of a memorable experience. Once they grab this memory, I would have them to accept the fact that this happened ...
Read more

My Literacy Experiences

My secondary literacy years were not very exciting. I remember in 7 th grade, my ELA teacher was not very interested in teaching. I recall her saying she just wanted a job until she passed the Bar Exam. She never put anything on the walls of the classroom. It was a cold room. Blank walls, desk and chairs. No color at all. She never showed an interest in the class or the subject. I remember reading Lord of the Flies and thinking, I do not understand anything in this book. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but I was intrigued. The story itself was good, but I did not understand the premise. The author’s intent was never explained to me. When I asked questions for a better understanding, she insisted that I was “stupid” and continued other hurtful comments. She even suggested that I should be placed in special education class down the hall because I lacked the intelligence needed for her class. Well, this experience put me I a bad head space. It caused me to doubt my abilities and to ...
Read more

BHH (Book-Head-Heart)

Students struggle with reading. It’s not that they can’t call the words on the page, they have a genuine fear of a lot of words on a page. It doesn’t matter if it is a simple storybook all typed and fit on a single page, or if it is a 350-page novel, they are intimidated by it. So, when I read about Book, Head, Heart strategy, I thought this is a great idea to implement in the classroom. When students read, they need to understand that they are reading for a purpose. Even if it is leisure reading, it still has a purpose. Let's break it down.   Book: what is the book about? Who is telling the story? What does the author want the reader to know? Head: What surprise is in the story? What are the assumptions of the author about the reader? What confirmations are there? Are there any challenges? What have you noticed? Heart: What have you learned about yourself in this reading? How will this make you a better reader? This strategy was practice in our class for a discu...
Read more